not be feared by a
sensible man. Consequently there was nothing to fear.

The conclusion contradicted the given facts from which he had argued,
and the chiseller was puzzled. For the first time his method of
reasoning did not satisfy him, and he tried to find out the cause. Was
it, he asked to himself, because there lingered in his mind some early
tradition of the wickedness of doing murder? Since there was no soul,
there was no absolute right and wrong, and everything must be decided by
the standard of expediency. It was a mistake to allow people to murder
each other openly, of course, because people of less intellectual
capacity would take upon themselves to judge such cases in their own
way. But provided that public morality, the darling of the real
freethinker, were not scandalised, there would be no inherent wrong in
doing away with Paolo. On the contrary, his death would be a benefit to
the community at large, and an advantage to Marzio in particular. Not a
pecuniary advantage either, for in Marzio's strange system there would
have been an immorality in murdering Paolo for his money if he had ever
had any, though it seemed right enough to kill him for an idea. That is,
to a great extent, the code of those persons who believe in nothing but
what they call great ideas. The individuals who murdered the Czar would
doubtless have scrupled to rob a gentleman in the street of ten francs.
The same reasoning developed itself in Marzio's brain. If his brothel
had been rich, it would have been a crime to murder him for his wealth.
It was no crime to murder him for an idea. Marzio said to himself that
to get rid of Paolo would be to emancipate himself and his family from
the rule and interference of a priest, and that such a proceeding was
only the illustration on a small scale of what he desired for his
country; consequently it was just, and therefore it ought to be done.

Unfortunately for his logic, the continuity of his deductions was
blocked by a consideration which he had not anticipated. That
consideration could only be described as fear for the future, and it had
been forcibly thrust upon him by the fright he had received while he was
examining the hole in the floor. In order to neutralise it, Marzio had
tried the experiment of braving what he considered to be a momentary
terror by obstinately studying the details of the plan he intended to
execute. To his surprise he found that he returned to the same
conclusion as